Remembered Words
by Arhani 'Hanny' Daforcena
Summary: The words said between two souls could never be forgotten, whether in life, or in death. As a man cremates the woman he loves, and as her spirit watches his every move, both remembering the words that they had said to one another. Now a two-shot. RNR plz!
1. Makarov

He could not give her a proper funeral, not when the blazing desert heat would make sure that she would decompose into nothing but rotting flesh within a few hours. However, he knew that it mattered little. She was at peace... When he had made it back to his own base in the helicopter that he himself had flown, he quickly instructed his men to retrieve any single trace of formaldehyde that they had, to preserve her for as long as possible.

* * *

"_Men are sexist bigots... I used a male name to get in so that those who have not seen me would not dismiss me before they know that I am very good in what I do."_

Her voice, her soft voice, yet filled with a certain militaristic charm, was flooding in his head. But to tell the truth, there were few words that she had ever spoken to him. She had been a woman of feeling, and of actions, she hardly spoke, particularly to him.

* * *

"_I must be crazy, you freaking shot me..."_

Her obliviousness to the irony that surrounded her was... refreshing. She had known full well that he had been the one that she was supposed to destroy, and yet, she did the exact opposite, just as he had done. He knew that she was not anyone significant at all, despite all her talents and her youth. She had been of relatively low rank, with only her parents to mourn for her if she had died, while skilled enough to even masquerade as one of his agents. The most important thing was that she was able to speak Russian, which he had to admit, was almost flawless for a non-native speaker.

* * *

"_Stay with me..."_

He remembers the first night that she had come to him, it had passed without any event. She was just there, sleeping in his arms, after taking a few pills that she'd told him that the Loyalist doctors had prescribed to her. She had thought that they were painkillers, but he knew better. Some of those pills were powerful medications designed to halt the occurrence of dreaming; she must have had the worst nightmares in those three days when she had been under their protection.

It had only been a theory, before she had gone to Rio de Janeiro to kill Alejandro Rojas for him, but he knew that the hypothesis that he had so absently formed, was solid fact indeed. Even in her waking hours, when she was alone, and her mind had been allowed to wander, she had been haunted by what she had seen, by what he had caused her to see.

Any single person could have broken down at the sheer thought of killing others, but she was a soldier, she was used to death and carnage. But to cause the death of innocent, unarmed men, women and children, he was not able to blame her for not being able to handle that. He was a monster, while she was not even close to being one.

That night, she had stopped taking any form of medication, thinking herself already cured from her injuries and their effects. That was when the nightmares had come to her in full blast... She had practically screamed herself awake, and he was there, watching her as she writhed in bed, tortured by her own memories. He had to admit, even he, had a hard time to try to calm her down.

* * *

As his men started to raise a platform as a pyre to lay her on, Anatoly and Viktor went into his tent, where he had still been holding her in his arms, the effect of the formaldehyde still going strong. They had brought with them a package, meant only for his eyes, but had nothing to do with their operations. It was a dress, one that he had bought hurriedly after the three of them had evacuated Zakhaev International Airport. It had not been particularly costly, but he knew that it would fit her nicely.

It was red, red like the color of blood, which contrasted with her own natural coloring. As he removed her battle-worn catsuit, a pioneer form of light armor designed for women in the field, he took it off and set it aside with reverence, and dressed her cold, but still beautiful body in the dress, smiling when his heterochromic eyes chanced upon a particular mark that he had left.

* * *

"_Make love to me."_

He knew that she had spoken those words, not out of passion, but out of desperation. Somehow, he could sense that she felt safe with him. At that time, she did not know that she loved him, nor did he realize at all that he loved her as well. She had clung onto him, with every single trace of her own being, knowing that with him, she did not need to fear anything in the world.

The first night that they had been together, had been heated with passion and a dark hunger. But this time, it was something completely different. She _needed_ him, and he felt every ounce of that truth. Her sapphire eyes, they had been filled with a dark glaze, but it had not been desire, it was pure need. Whatever she had felt with him, she knew that she needed him, because she had felt something... if only if he had known it sooner.

If only he had known that she had felt the safest with him, he would not have sent her back to the Task Force 141. She still would be able to defeat Shepherd... He had sent her to her death... Who knows what she could have seen, without him by her side? He would be able to stop her from...

* * *

"_You have to get out of here, Shepherd has this place surrounded. You're outnumbered three to one!"_

Those words had been spoken moments before the battle in the vehicle disposal area, she was afraid of him. There was only her, Price, and MacTavish, as well as a few other teammates. If anyone was to run, it was them... Even if they had been on opposing sides, she was still so concerned of him.

It had only been half a day ago. Her hair, it was tied into a neat, but elegant bun, with a few strands of gold blowing in the winds that beckoned a coming sandstorm. He knew it then, that he loved her...that he had made all the wrong decisions... He should never have let her walk down that path at all.

* * *

"_Without you, I wouldn't have gotten back to the 141, I wouldn't have known all of __them... Makarov, you gave me everything that I have gained... Even if you would kill me all over again, I would do it again."_

She was such a fool... She could have chosen to live, not only that, she could have chosen power, power beside him, but of all the things that she could be, she had chosen death. She loved him, but she would rather choose death. He could not see why, but she had been adamant, that she had died again, after she had accomplished the mission that she had set for herself. She loved him, but she was willing even to leave him...

* * *

"_Look, you can see the moon when it's still daylight..."_

He knew that she had calculated that particular sentence. She had never said anything like it before, and he had been tricked into looking at the full moon, a silver disc in the otherwise clear, evening sky. She knew that he would not bear to see her die, and moved his attention away from her, so that he would be spared from that one moment when she had taken her last breath...

* * *

That was how much she had loved him...

* * *

"Sir, the pyre is ready," one of his men reported. He could not remember that man's face, but it was a voice that he would forget. That voice had heralded that it was time to send her on her way. He nodded at the young soldier, and carried her onto the pyre, laying her there, in that red dress, with the M4A1 that she had always favored.

They were men of the military. Funerals like these were commonplace, and they even had an urn ready for her. It was nothing like what he had ever wanted to place her ashes in, but he had no time to get another one... When he returned to Moscow, he would utilize his own methods to ensure that her memory would remain... At least, until he was able to carry out her dying wish to scatter her ashes throughout Russia.

He took the torch in his hand, and caressed her forehead. "Goodbye, my love," he murmured into her ear. "Perhaps, I would see you again, in heaven, or in hell." With one final kiss to her cold, dead lips that had once been so warm, he heaved a deep sigh, and lowered the torch onto where fuel had been poured.

And there he stood, watching as the flames engulfed her body, that peaceful smile on her face, which he had never seen before until the time of her death, remaining even if she was about to become nothing but ash. Who would remember her, when she was gone?

Only him...

Yes, it would be only him.

* * *

She knew that there was nothing that could have stopped her from walking the path that she wanted. Not even him... She loved him, but a promise had been a promise... Even if she loved him, even if she knew that she could have a life of luxury, of love and passion beside him, a life able to fight because she wanted to, because she could, she knew that she had to let him go.

She remembered hearing a voice in the time between when she had been shot, and when the FSB had surrounded her. _You would be given a second chance, child, to redeem yourself, and to destroy the man that threatens to destroy his own nation..._ She had told that voice that she would give any single price that she could pay, even if it was her own life...

As her physical body was burning, she walked towards the man that she loved, and held him in her now-transparent arms, knowing full-well that she would not be able to touch him physically. "I love you..." she whispered onto his neck, and walked towards the setting sun.

_You have fulfilled your promise, child, _the voice told her. _When the time is right, you would see him again..._

She smiled, and nodded. She would be right there, waiting for him, and until then, she wished him well, that he would be able to achieve all that he had wanted to, just as she had done. ..

Ironically, he was looking towards her, just as she was about to leave. His gaze, it was not hard and cold, as she had always known before she had seen, and loved him, but not as gentle and passionate as she had known. At that moment, he was no longer a cold-blooded murderer, nor was he the lover of a tortured soul, he was only he, himself...

And thus, without a heavy heart, she walked towards the field of flowers that only she could see, waiting, waiting for the day that she would see him again.


	2. Anya

"_Your superiors told me to expect one Alexei Borodin,"

* * *

_

Those were the first words that he had said to her, the first of many, many more, across the short time that they had spent with one another. As the flames engulfed her physical body, she looked at him with her sapphire eyes, and smiled. He loved her so much, but yet she could not be with him, for as long as she had wished...

He had not expected her at all. She knew, she knew that he was really expected a man, and not her. She knew that night that they had spent together, had thrown all of his plans into disaster... And she, she had not expected that she would have fallen so deeply for a man like him...

* * *

"_You, my dear, will be the death of me..."_

Ever since she met him, she had been set with irony after irony. He was the man who had shot her, but it was with that shot, aimed only slightly lower than her heart, that she had been able to see what she had seen. And when in the end, it was he who was the one who killed her all over again, technically. And he was the one who told her that she would the death of him...

This man was the man who had caused the blood of innocents to flow like a river, the man who had caused just as much fear in Europe as Osama bin Laden had in the Middle East. Yet this man, was the only one who could destroy her nightmares, however crushing they had been. Only he was able to bring peace to her troubled mind, while only he was able to make her feel safe... She took his hand, when she knew that he was the enemy, and she had given her heart to him, even when she knew that she had all her nightmares, all the gory memories of those she had killed with her own hands, had been caused by him. She had killed all of them, just to gain his trust...  
_

* * *

_

"_Maria... Anya..."_

She had been Maria Allen. She was a Corporal, relatively low-ranked, but she had been rising so quickly through the ranks that even Captain Price would have foreseen that she would be promoted without doubt after this whole fiasco. It had been who she was... But who was Maria Allen?

But who was Anya?

Anya was a woman, neither Russian, nor American, but her own woman. She, like Maria Allen, was a sniper, talented more than any of his men. A woman of pure feeling, young and restive, the woman that was more beautiful than any that he had ever known. She had captured his mind, and each and every single one of his senses...When she was Anya, there was nothing that she could have feared, because when she was Anya, she was with him...  
_

* * *

_

"_All of us have our own times of weakness... we are only human."_

Those words... he had spoken out of concern, but she knew that he had meant them in his own way. Her weakness had been that she was not able to put the past behind her. She had allowed her own nightmares to destroy her. She, Price and MacTavish had taken down an entire base with only their bare hands. She had killed Shepherd, against all odds, but she knew that she could not live on like this, promise to a disembodied voice, or not.

* * *

"_I can't kill you..."_

She had heard those words many times, in many different occasions. She did not understand them at first, but now, she could. Like how she had so strangely felt safe around him, he had been drawn to her. The two of them had been like moths being drawn to a flame, knowing that their actions could have given them dire consequences.

He could not kill her, but what he had done for her, was more than she could have ever imagined. He had sent her back to the 141, as a double agent, to make MacTavish suspicious of Shepherd, and to rouse discord amongst them, but she had gained more than just that.

When she had been told by Shepherd that she was recruited into the 141, she was happier than anyone. Those in there, had been the best in the world, and she had been recognized as one of them... It had been an honor that she could have never thought could be hers. She could not deny that those days with the 141, even if they had been shorter than her days with him, had been the happiest that she had ever known. They had a caring and understanding Captain, but all of them, they had been like one big family. One family that to her, was like one that she had always known.

For that, she would be forever grateful to him. It should have been for that, that she was supposed to give her very soul to him, and not only her love, and her body as well...

* * *

"_I came back... for someone..."_

No matter how hard she had tried to dissuade him, no matter how hard she had tried to stop him from coming back for her. He still done so. She knew that he had been outnumbered three to one; that he should have made for Moscow the very moment they had parted in Kandahar. He had loved her, so much that he would risk his own life, not knowing the outcome of her mission...

But it had been too late.

She had already given up her life for her own cause. No matter how they had felt for one another, it was her decision. This man, she owed him everything, that was why she could not allow Price and MacTavish to bring him down as well. Not when she was still alive and able to stop them. She was lucky that Price had understood her. At least, she was able to pass on knowing that he had not come into harm.

* * *

"_You have come so far to achieve what you have wished... why would you choose such a fate?"_

This was something that he could not understand, nor something that he could ever have known. Her nightmares, her sins, everything that she had done, could not be replaced by what she had done to redeem herself. The blood of thousands of civilians, she knew that they could not be repaid. She, as a combatant of the 141, she had killed two of her own brothers in Rio de Janeiro. Even if the others could have forgiven her if they had known about it, she could never forgive herself.

She knew that she could have lived a long life of power with him, but until the end, she was still an American, she was still a patriot. He had been using her to take Shepherd down, but she had used him as well, in her own way... Without the security that he had given her, as well as the ability to return to the Task Force 141, she could not have done all that.

Even without her nightmares, she knew that she could not live a life of hatred, and of vengeance. Even if it had been little more than a week, perhaps two, she had been awfully weary. Her sapphire eyes, they could no longer see the light of life, not even with him... She loved him, but she was not like him. To hate a person, caused more pain than to love another, she could be a testament to that.

* * *

"_I love you..."_

To be honest, she would not believe him if he had said those three words earlier. But that the time when she was walking the fine line between life and death, and was finally able to cross over to the abyss, those words had been sweeter than anything that she had heard.

At that very moment, she was no longer Maria Allen, nor Anya, but she was just a woman, who had known that a man that loved her, despite everything that had happened. At that moment, there were only the two of them, and no one else, only the sands and the river... They had been their witness, and even when the two of them had been long gone, they would always remember them.

She sits amongst the flowers, watching as the butterflies with gold winds and sapphire "eyes" fluttered about her. They were her agents, just as she had been his, and America's. With each one that flies out of her haven unseen by others and those that were alive, she receives information about the world that she had left.

From them, she knew that he had gained control of the Russian Army, becoming their Supreme Commander. He had prevented the Americans from taking Moscow, ending the war within six months of fighting. She had been proud of him. He was able to protect his own nation, and was yet able to put down his hatred and his anger, and end the war with a ceasefire... Just as the Russians had been able to retaliate on the Americans, he had stopped the fighting by entering into talks with Price and MacTavish. The condition for the ceasefire would be that there would be no war tribunals, and that not a single soul would be tried in court for whatever they might have done in the duration of the war.

Deep down, she knew how much he had wanted this opportunity, she knew how much he had waited for this moment for the vengeance he had wanted against what the Americans and the rest of the world had done to him, but he had put everything down, for a reason that she could never fathom.

She knew that she had not loved the wrong man.

* * *

"Hey, sleepyhead," she whispered into his ear, a long while after he had fallen asleep on her lap. He did not even notice the wreath of flowers that she had placed around his neck.

Grumbling, he pulled her head down towards him and silenced her with a kiss as he always had done, before trying to continue to sleep. "What is it, my love?" he asked her, lacing his fingers with hers. My love... it had such a strange ring to it that she had to get used to it, not that she minded it anyways.

"Have you ever regretted everything that you've done, anything at all?"

Lazily, he gave her a wry smile, one that she loved, and knew. "All that I have done has led me to you, why would I regret even the slightest bit?"

She chuckled, and brushed the fingers of her free hand into his short, dark hair. Saying nothing further, she gently laid him down on the bed of flowers, and crept beside him, resting her head on his broad chest, as she had done so, almost an eternity ago, in a stately house, in the center of a valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and evergreen forests.

Thus, she, too, was able to sleep in peace, remembering the words that he had told her, knowing that every single one of them was true, and that they had come from his heart, and only his heart.

* * *

HAN: Alright, I blame this chapter on Makarov. He can't seem to get out of my head, poking my muse until I came out with something. CURSE YOU, YOU RUSSIAN BADASS!

Hoookay, now that it's out of my chest, I would like to thank all who read and review this two-shot sequel for Beautiful. ^.^


End file.
